Tag Archives: minnesota

Yr Wonkette is pleased to bring you a special guest bloogpost by longtime commenter ElviouslyQueer. And congratulations, EQ!
What has your intrepid correspondent, the beloved Elviouslyqueer, been up to this weekend? GLAD YOU ASKED! I was in Minnesota, at the Mall of America, getting my very gay ass™ very officially gay married on Saturday (there was a chapel! There were beads! There was booze galore, and delicious cake!). I even rode a mechanical bull, because I am classy and shit. My newly minted hubby and I continued celebrating the next day by going to Twin Cities Pride and laughing at the many, many scantily clad tweens for whom the “Dick Pocket” seemed to be this years’ de rigueur clothing accessory, before heading back to Mississippi. And, you also ask, was there a honeymoon? There was NOT a honeymoon because we are not richer than fuck and cannot afford a two-week long vacay to Mykonos or The Pines or wherever it is where all good gays go (we shopped, also too, so we are now officially the best-dressed poors in the Mid-South). Read more on Bryan Fischer Blessed My Hot Gay Marriage…

Northern Minnesota is the land of Bob Dylan and the Boundary Waters, a place where every sunset is accompanied by the haunting songs of loons and no one ever talks about their feelings. It is also home to Stewart Mills, who is running for Congress and has been called the “Brad Pitt of the GOP” by this lady, who may have an undiagnosed astigmatism. D.C. really is Hollywood for ugly people and also this guy really looks like Steve Zahn.
Anyway, who is this guy, Stewart Mills, the guy who is crushing a beer bong like a TOTAL CHAMP in the photo above?
In relaxed environments, Mills is polite and funny, the kind of guy voters would want to have a beer with. Over the course of several conversations with this reporter, he made frequent references to experiences he’s had with this or that “buddy of mine” and showed off pictures of his young kids fishing (he has two children, three stepchildren and four step-grandchildren).
And he offered a gleeful response to the story from last fall that showed pictures of him drinking from a beer bong.
“Chugging a beer gives me credibility with the 8th District,” he said.
Dude puts the party back in Republican Party, are we right?
Read more on Meet the Gun-Humping ‘Brad Pitt Of The GOP’…

Hey, remember Michelle MacDonald, the completely sober lady who’s running for Minnesota Supreme Court and insists that DUI charges against her are a political frame-up, even though she refused a breathalyzer test and was charged with resisting arrest, too? Turns out she is also a big fan of the true law of the land: The Holy Bible, though she hears tell that there are some other, lesser statutes out there, too, like the Constitution. Read more on Drinky-Drivey Supreme Court Candidate Will Bible You So Hard, Minnesota…

As we all know from the failed vettening of secret Muslim Barack Obama, a lot of unfortunate secrets can come to light if We The People do not carefully look into a candidate’s background. It also does not help if the Candidate fails to tell anyone about an embarrassing thing that they know darn well is a matter of public record, like maybe take for instance how Minnesota Supreme Court candidate Michelle MacDonald didn’t tell the state Republican party that she has a pending DUI case before they endorsed her. She may have thought that spelling her name with two “l’s” was all she needed for electoral success, but she probably misjudged. Read more on Minnesota Supreme Court GOP Candidate Lady: This DUI Charge Is A Frame-Up! She’s A Patsy!…

You know how when you are being deposed or whatever, you are supposed to only answer the question put to you and never volunteer anything? And you know how also sometimes people on trial for shit or being questioned for something give super-comical totally not-disingenuous answers where they “don’t recall”?
Well, Archbishop Robert Carlson — formerly of Minneapolis/St. Paul, and now presiding over the souls of Good St. Louis — took that to its logical extreme in a deposition about priests under his command raping children, when he told his deposers that he does not recall whether he knew doing sex to children was against the law. Read more on Bishop Doesn’t Know If He Knew Doing Sex To Kids Was Against The Law…

Among the joys of local politics are the “characters” and “loveable bums” that the local press get to know over the years. We were delighted to learn of one such congenial fellow from Minneapolis’s City Pages today: Former Michele Bachmann chief of staff Andy Parrish, who in the past has fought for Traditional Marriage and also been photographed at a hot-oil bikini wrasslin’ match, though not, apparently, as a competitor. We guess we miss out on a lot in exchange for not having PolarDeepFreezeSnowPocalypse winters! Mr. Parrish’s most recent exploits were at the MNGOP Convention over the weekend, where after the candidate whose campaign Mr. Parrish managed failed to win the nomination to run for U.S. Senate against Al Franken, Parrish got all in the grill of a supporter of another candidate, calling him “cream puff” and then slapping him in the face a few times for good measure. It’s not exactly Preston Brooks whomping Charles Sumner with a cane on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but for our fallen modern age, it’s pretty good theater, and a useful corrective to the propaganda warblings of that Keillor fellow. Read more on Former Bachmann Aide Has Satisfying New Career Losing Campaigns, Slapping People…

Yesterday, we introduced you to the hip new trend: luring teenagers into your garage and lying in wait for them to burgle, so you can shoot them! How can you be a good guy with a gun if the bad guys don’t come around, for you to shoot them! Oddly, the police and prosecutors in Montana and Minnesota arrested the good guys with guns, just because they they murdered a bunch of teenagers, even though it was in their own homes and “castle doctrine” blah blah blah. The police were like, you seem to have been a little too excited about the shooting people and ground-standing and maybe opening your garage door, putting a purse in front of it, and then BLAM BLAM BLAMMING a high school student was a little much, see?
One of the cases resulted in a conviction Tuesday (heads-up to Gawker, dude isn’t on trial, he’s already guilty). That case was Byron Smith of Little Falls, Minnesota, who claimed self-defense after lying in wait for a neighbor girl he suspected of being involved in a rash of break-ins, with a tarp at the ready to protect his basement rec-room floor, and then shooting her and her friend very very dead. Now a judge has released the audio. Do you have to listen to it? Maybe you do not love hearing teens murdered. But we actually think it is important to bear witness to the lengths to which Responsible Gun Owners will go to have their murder cake and eat their self defense too. Read more on You Should Listen To This Responsible Gun Owner Murder These Teenagers, Even Though You Do Not Want To…

The law is a grand thing, a collection of not merely statutes, but also precedents from previous cases, and when a legal innovation comes along, sometimes there have to be a few test cases to determine the boundaries of that new law. Do Nazis have the right to march in Skokie? (yes) Can ‘intelligent design’ be taught as science? (no) Just how black dangerous-seeming does someone have to be before it’s legal to shoot them on your property, and if you really really want to shoot a criminal, any criminal, can you lay out a trap to entice one onto your property? (undetermined) Thankfully, with a lot of states broadening the scope of what counts as “self defense,” several brave Responsible Gun Owners have taken to killing folks for the sake of finding out what kinds of homicide are justified. No applause necessary; these everyday Second Amendment Heroes just see it as their civic duty. Read more on These People Trapping And Shooting These Teenagers Are Not Very Nice, No, Not At All…

Here’s some very measured, very partial Nice Time for you nice people! The National Rifle Association, according to a piece by Laura Bassett and Christina Wilkie at the Huffington Post, is quietly backing away from one part of its “never restrict guns ever anywhere for any reason” agenda, and has actually dropped its objections to a law in Washington state that would require people to give up their firearms if they’re served with a protective order for domestic violence. And that’s after opposing the bill for over 10 years. The NRA has also not opposed similar bills in Louisiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. This is a big step forward from the organization’s previous position, which was that only someone convicted on felony charges of domestic violence should have to surrender their precious Freedom Irons. And of course, the NRA still opposes any broadening of the scope of such bans to include perfectly OK charges like stalking, because how else are you going to catch a deer? Read more on The NRA Is Scared Of Girls…

The other day, we brought you the most serious scandal of the 2014 midterms so far: the revelation that in 2012, Al Franken held two small traffic cones to his chest as if they were boobies. After the story was broken by Dead Breitbart’s Internet Home for Incoherent Outraged Babbling, it made its way to the campaign office of one of the Republican candidates hoping to take on Franken in the fall, Minnesota state Sen. Julianne Ortman, who tossed it onto her FacePlace page with the accusation that Franken “doesn’t take women seriously.” Which is so very true, because in 1970-something he made a really dumb rape joke during an SNL writers’ meeting, which is the only thing you need to know about Al Franken and his attitudes toward women. Certainly nothing he’s done in the Senate — like his amendment banning the government from contracting with companies that try to keep women from pursuing rape cases, or his support for equal pay, or his support for stronger domestic violence protections — can ever make up for that. But yes, if you are offended by Franken’s misuse of traffic cones, sign the petition — which is, of course, just a link to get you on Ortman’s mailing list.
On the other hand, we suppose we agree that it’s not all that funny, but who knows what he was saying — it might have totally reframed the traffic-cones-as-boobs visuals in a brilliantly satirical ironic context. Clearly, an investigation is needed. Read more on Al Franken’s GOP Opponent Outraged By His Unspeakable Attack On Women With Traffic Cone Boobies…

BREAKING BREITBART SCOOP MUST CREDIT BREITBART! In 2012, Minnesota Sen. Al Franken was videotaped goofing around with a couple of small traffic cones. Charlie Spiering, a Very Concerned Horcrux of Breitbart, offers this analysis:
Since his narrow election to the Senate in 2009, Sen. Al Franken has labored to create a new image for himself as a studious wonk. But it looks like he still retains the racy sense of humor that originally landed him on Saturday Night Live.
A new video obtained by Breitbart News shows the former comedian and left-wing pundit playing with a pair of traffic cones pretending they were a pair of female breasts.
Franken is seen in the video holding two cones to his chest and grinning in an apparent flash of comedy.
Yes, women’s breasts are “funny” to Al Franken. SHAME AL FRANKEN. SHAME. Or possibly he was making a Madonna joke, which would be sadly out of date but also the first thing that comes to mind. Shocking video after the jump!!! Read more on Al Franken Can’t Stop Playing With His Big Fake Breasts (Video)…

In a rare diplay of bipartisanship, members of the Minnesota congressional delegation came together Wednesday in the spirit of friendly competition (and knowing that not showing up would be noticed and talked about, which may be the far greater motivation for a Midwesterner) for Sen. Al Franken’s fourth annual hotdish cook-off. The press release says Franken “started the friendly ‘Hotdish Off’ as a way to bring the delegation together and celebrate a Minnesota culinary tradition,” although we can’t altogether discount the possibility that it is actually a method of gathering intelligence for his lizard-people overlords. Did they explain what this “Hotdish” is? They did not.
The big winner, for the second year in a row, was Rep. Tim Walz with his “Turkey Trot Tater Tot Hotdish,” with Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s “‘It’s So Cold My Hotdish Froze’ Dessert Hotdish” and Rep. John Kline’s “Morning ‘Hot Chow’ Hotdish” tied for second. Franken’s website has photos of the event and copies of all the participants’ recipes, for any of you wishing to add a touch of authenticity to your big St. Olaf’s Day party. Read more on Rep. Tim Walz Dominates Al Franken, Michele Bachmann In Epic Nice Time Hotdish Showdown…

Beer. As the great philosopher said, it is the cause of and solution to all life’s problems. And one brave man was trying to make it easier for people to cause and/or solve problems, by using good ol’ American ingenuity to find a better, faster, easier way to get your frothy goodness to you. From the Star Tribune:
The idea seemed ingenious: Delivering 12-packs of beer to the cold, windswept surfaces of popular ice fishing lakes — using a drone.
Reading this, we literally heard a Hallelujah chorus, as a ray of golden sunlight illuminated our computer screen. What giant among men, what hero in a world full of fallen souls was Touched by the Hand of a Muse with such utter, simple brilliance? Seriously, this is the kind of thing Pete Seeger would write a folk song about, peace be upon him. Anything to make alcohol easier to obtain gets a million thumbs-up from us.
But, Glorious Readers, it was not to be. For you see, drones are meant to kill innocent wedding parties, not deliver hoppy, wonderful goodness to your frozen fishing shack. Come with us, and learn more about this tragic tale. Read more on Minnesota Hero Seeks To Use Drones To Deliver Beer; We’ll Take One Million, Please…

Here is Fox & Friends’ Heather Nauert on the teevee yesterday, explaining how “sharia law” is taking over, because a YMCA in Minneapolis-St. Paul is going to hold a girls-only swim class one hour a week, providing Somali refugee girls the chance to learn to swim. BUT! Since men won’t be allowed in the pool area and the only lifeguards and instructors will be women, this is obviously evidence of, as Nauert puts it,
“the minority becoming the majority at one community pool. Sharia law is now changing everything.”
Oh, mercy — what do you want to bet that during that hour of swimming classes, they’re going to learn underwater bomb-making, too! Because in Fox Math, a class for girls aged 5 to 17 is now, somehow, the tyrannic “majority.” Read more on Fox & Friends Will Not Let Muslim Girls’ Swim Class Destroy America With Aquatic Sharia…

A Minnesota school bus driver — who’s also a pastor at two Minneapolis churches — was fired from his bus-driving job last week for mixing up his two occupations. Needless to say, he believes that interfering with his evangelizing to a captive audience of children on a bus is a violation of his First Amendment rights.
George Nathaniel received a warning and was transferred to a different route after the bus company received complaints from the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school district, but wasn’t going to let some stupid Constitution of the United States get in His Way: “I let them know I am a pastor and I am going to pray,” he said. Because he has a special duty to be a Christian pastor when he is driving a school bus full of Muslim children, don’t people understand that? Read more on PC Police End Hero Praying Bus Driver’s Mission To Save Muslim Children…

The Republican Party of Chisago County, Minnesota, posted this awesome satirical image on its Facebook page for a few hours Wednesday, then removed it — and the entire Facebook page, for a while — before posting an apology, saying that the posting was “not representative of our party.” Aw, come on, guys, enough Republicans have said that the attempt to ban abortion is exactly like the 19th-century abolition movement that you don’t need to apologize. After all, isn’t that exactly the hilarious point of the post, that legalized abortion is just as morally reprehensible as legal slavery? If anything, liberals should apologize for the slogan that inspired the Chisago GOP’s amusing spoof, because choosing not to have an abortion while allowing abortion to remain legal for others is exactly like choosing not to own a slave while slavery as an institution continued, amirite? Read more on Minnesota County Republicans Pull Hilarious Slavery Joke From Facebook Page…

While the mayoral election in Minneapolis has attracted a bit more attention for its wide variety of oddballs (especially lake-coffee man Jeff Wagner), St. Paul has its own stable of “characters” too. So here is St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman — the incumbent, which is something that Minneapolis does not have in its election — having a very hard time suppressing the giggles at a mayoral candidate forum Thursday, mostly in response to “perennial candidate” Sharon Anderson, who is kind of like the Basil Marceaux of St. Paul. We won’t say too much about her, because the poor dear seems to have gone Full TimeCube, if her campaign blog is any indication. Still, we’re happy that she’s not a very big fan of that Cily Myrus and her wrecking ball. Read more on Hey, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, Seems Everything Is Funny To You…

OK, sure, we’re sad about the little kids not getting food, and not being able to go to Head Start, but now this shutdown thing is getting serious: NBC reports that the government shutdown
Read more on Government Shutdown Hits Something Really Important: Beer…

As a perfect finale to the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, we have this story from New Ulm, Minnesota: a New Ulm Actors Community Theater production of the 1955 play Inherit the Wind had to be cancelled after fundamentalist Lutherans made life miserable for the play’s director and several actors. These are the fire-breathing Michele Bachmann kind of Minnesota Lutherans, not the Garrison Keillor kind. The denomination’s views are so extreme, in fact, that Bachmann left the church when she ran for president, seeing as how it might be difficult to get votes from Catholics when the WELS website says “We identify the anti-Christ as the papacy.”
Read more on Bad Minnesota Lutherans Cancel Community Theater Production Of ‘Inherit The Wind,’ For Freedom…

A Chaska, Minnesota, family is just not having a good week when it comes to accidentally shooting each other. It’s kind of hard for Yr Wonkette to really identify with, what with not owning a gun and all, which means we are apparently missing out on all the awesome self-protection and unintended flesh wounds, not to mention the public mockery. (OK, there was that one time when we put Calgon, British Colombia,* in the wrong state of Canada, but at least that left no holes in our body). Read more on Minnesota In-Laws Just Can’t Quit Accidentally Shooting Each Other; Drinking Somehow Not Involved…

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Sharia) can actually sing and play a guitar pretty well, and here he serves up a helping of progressive hero Woody Guthrie in celebration of Minnesota’s brand-new marriage equality law, which went into effect at midnight. At Minneapolis City Hall, Mayor R.T. Rybak performed the first of 42 marriages of same-sex couples this morning:
At the stroke of midnight, he turned to Cathy ten Broeke and Margaret Miles, who stood smiling through their tears, holding hands and wearing the same dresses they wore for their commitment ceremony 12 years ago.
“Margaret and Cathy, by the power now finally vested in me, by the laws of the people of Minnesota, we hereby declare Margaret and Cathy legally married. You may now kiss the bride.”
In a repeat of divine nonintervention that was seen following the resumption of same-sex marriages in California, God Almighty elected not to smite the state with any natural disasters. Read more on Nice Time! Minnesota Gays Get Hitched Up All Legal-Like…

We sure will miss Michele Bachmann, Empress of Crazytown, when she leaves the House of Representatives to more intimately torture the people of Minnesota on a daily basis. But until she leaves, she is determined to utter every nonsensical thing possible, in hopes of making the life of Yr Wonkette all that much better.
Today’s topic is the U.S. Treasury, and how it is filled with lying liars who lie to the American people, and that gives Bachmann a giant sad, according to The Hill:
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Wednesday night said the Treasury Department is lying to Americans about the size of the federal debt since it has not changed significantly for the last few months even though the government continues to borrow.
“That would be called a lie in our house. That is not acceptable to my husband and I. You don’t lie to us,” Bachmann said on the House floor.
That’s right, Treasury – you do not lie to the Bachmanns. She will totally put you over her lap and spank you. She will spank you real hard. You’ve been a bad bad department, haven’t you? She will spank you sooo good, Treasury baby, just like you like it until you scream out words like “debt ceiling,” “TARP,” “bailout,” and “trillion dollar coin.” Just remember that the safe word is “Bachmann 2016.” Let’s sexplore some more. Read more on Michele Bachmann Is Either Crazy Stupid Or Stupid Crazy Or Both…